Suicide Squad director on why he prefers villains to heroes: "They’re not bound by the normal rules"

One of the many reasons Suicide Squad is arguably 2016's most intriguing comic book movie is the idea of heroic criminals. Guardians of the Galaxy didn't really take that concept as far as they could - Rocket, Groot and co did the right thing for the vast majority of the movie - but everything we've seen and heard about DC's supervillain team-up indicates that David Ayer is going to push the envelope in this regard:

"All these characters are conflicted and complex", the director told Screen Rant. "And so many times you feel like, in the [comic book movie] genre, they’re trying to inject complexity into what’s a very black and white character. You know, good guys: they’re gonna do the good thing. It’s very easy to get ahead of them in plotting because you always know what the good guy’s going to do. These guys can do anything. They’re not bound by the normal rules, so that’s what makes it so fun to play in this space".

If Ayer has managed to fulfil the promise of this comment then Suicide Squad could wind up being the most unpredictable comic book movie in the genre. This will be especially true if the evil the villains are fighting are handled in just as refreshing a manner as the villains themselves, and Ayer is pretty confident he's succeeded on this front too:

"They’re pretty disturbing… yeah, they’re really disturbing. It’s hard to come up with bad guys, and it’s hard to come up with creatures. I mean, I think it’s one of the most difficult things, and if you look at modern development in film… it’s brutal. You want to do something fresh, yet, I also want to do something very specific to this world and unique. And I think we kind of nailed it. It’s sort of related to the bad guy stuff and the bad guy stuff is very much a sealed, locked box".

Directed by David Ayer and starring Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, and Joel Kinnaman, Suicide Squad will open in the UK and US on August 5, 2016.